The Department for Transport announced the £500m Restoring Your Railway Fund in January 2020 to enable opportunities to reinstate railway services and add new railway stations to the railway network. The fund has been split into three funding pots that support proposals that are at different stages of their development. Some media organisations have dubbed it the Reverse Beeching fund.
Proposed Railway Schemes is reporting on the latest updates that are in the public domain. The Restoring Your Railway fund and New Stations Fund 3 tags are used for articles where proposals are expected to submit bids to these funds.
Note: Potential applicants should use the guidance and links on the Department for Transport website. The Network Rail website contains information for applicants wishing to apply for New Stations Fund round 3.
The Restoring Your Railway Fund has been split into three funds to support projects that are at different stages of development:
- Ideas Fund
- Accelerating Existing Proposals
- Proposals for new or restored stations (also known as New Stations Fund 3)
Information about applications can be found on the Restoring Your Railway Fund – Applications page.
Ideas Fund
Applications to this fund are at an early stage of development, requiring support to develop an initial business case. The successful applicants have a proposal that restores railway services to communities that are not connected on the railway network. Examples include restoring railway services on freight lines, disused formations or creating new alignments that run parallel to previous corridors. The fund will offer 75% of costs up to £50k for successful proposals, which will focus on transport and economic studies that will support an initial business case.
There were expected to be at least three rounds of applications for funding from the Ideas Fund.
Ideas Fund – Round 1 (March 2020)
Round 1 closed in March. Expressions of Interest were required by 28 February and the deadline for applications being 16 March 2020. The Department for Transport received sixty applications for funding, which were scrutinised by the panel in May 2020.
On 23 May, it was announced that ten applications had been successfully awarded funding.
Ideas Fund – Round 2 (June 2020)
Round 2 closed in June 2020. The deadline for expressions of interest were Friday 22 May 2020 and applications were expected by Friday 19 June 2020. The Department for Transport are expected to announce successful bids in summer 2020. Fifty applications were made to the second round.
On 25 November 2020, it was announced that fifteen applications has been successfully awarded funding.
Ideas Fund – Round 3 (March 2021)
The Department for Transport announced round 3 on 23 January 2021 with a deadline for applications confirmed as 5 March 2021. It was confirmed that it would be the final round. On 27 October, it was confirmed that thirteen applications had received funding.
Accelerating Existing Proposals
Applications to this fund have already completed existing business cases/supporting analysis and require substantially more support to move to the next stage of the business case and design process. No confirmed list of applications have been shared for this funding.
Proposals for new and restored railway stations
Round 3 of the New Stations Fund offered up to £20m towards proposed railway stations that could be delivered within the next five years.